Becoming the Person God Wants Us to Be

Each one of us is called to live the truth of our unrepeatable uniqueness. We are not meant to model ourselves after others, however wonderful they may be. A delightful Jewish parable makes this point. When Rabbi Eleazar died and arrived in heaven, as the legend goes, he was worried about his degree of holiness. He wondered whether God was going to be angry with him. 

He imagined God cross-questioning him about his way of life, saying, “Tell me, why did you not become like Abraham, the man of faith, or like Moses, the…